OUP Blog: Are migrant farm workers disappearing?

Migrant farmworkers plant and pick most of the fruits and vegetables
that you eat. Seasonal crop farmers, who employ workers only a few weeks
of the year, rely on workers who migrate from one job to another.
However, farmers’ ability to rely on migrants to fill their seasonal
labor needs is in danger.

From 1989 through 1988, roughly half of all seasonal crop farmworkers
migrated: traveled at least 75 miles for a U.S. job. Since then, the
share of workers who migrate has dropped by more than in half, hitting
18% in 2012. Because of this drop in the number of migrants, farmers are
increasingly struggling to find workers to pick their crops before they
spoil.... Read full blog post on OUP